And it turns out there is some kind of backstory about why grander events didn't work out, fingers are being pointed, and the net result was a very quiet flip into MB's second century. The new SouthBay magazine pulls together a chunk of the story, lightly hinting at deeper controversies. (Click here to read "Centennial Celebration: Half-Baked," online.)

But we're not going to wallow in the mud of what did or didn't happen or why. That's a human issue.

We've got a civic pride issue here: MB is 100! We're now into our second century.

It ain't much by most measures, perhaps. But we are much, much older more established than, say, Irvine (founded 1971).

Here's a proposal: How about this Sunday, we shut down our downtown, bring in some snow for the kids to play in, have some military plane flyovers, everyone just mills about for a time to chitchat, and we blow up some fireworks?

And make sure there's a Dixieland band.

Oh, you, say: We do that practically every year anyway.

This time, it's different. Every snowball tossed, every note from the clarinet and every blast in the sky celebrates the dawn of our next century.